Blood Sugar
by junecat
Summary: A snapshot of James Aubrey's day, a year after his father disappeared to Croatia.


James thundered up the stairs to his second-floor apartment, his backpack thumping against his back.

He could hear his mother's Frank Sinatra CD blaring from down here. She worked as a waitress in the evenings, so a lot of the time she had already left for her shift by the time he was getting home from after-school tutoring. When he left for school in the mornings, she was at her other job as a grocery stocker. Today, though, it seemed like they were going to get to see each other briefly. James wrestled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He burst in, shouting, "Mom!"

Mary was sitting at their small dining room table. They had picked it up together from a thrift store two blocks away for $6. It was the first piece of furniture they bought for their new apartment after James's dad took off. The table hadn't come with chairs, so the two chairs they eventually got for it didn't match. Mary constantly made remarks about it, but James thought it was cool. It reminded him of a sitcom set.

She looked up from the papers she'd been looking at when he came in. She smiled at him, crow's feet crinkling at her eyes. Her hair was up for work, and she was already dressed in all black with her non-slips on.

"Your son," James said as he toed his shoes off by the door. It had been raining, and his socks got wet through the soles of his shoes, so he pulled those off too and shoved them into his shoes. "got the highest score in the class on his chemistry test." He shook his head, spraying water out of his hair.

Mary set her papers down. "Did I have a smarter son that I forgot about?" she quipped.

James rolled his eyes. He tossed his backpack on the floor and sat across from her at the table. "You haven't left for work yet?" he asked, glancing at the clock on their microwave.

She started folding up the papers she'd been holding and shoved them into an envelope. "No, I'm closing tonight. I'll leave soon." She glanced back at their fridge. "Do you—uh—want me to cook you dinner before I go?"

James knew two things. The first was that there wasn't anything in the kitchen that could be used to throw a respectable dinner together. Today was Monday. His mom got paid every other Wednesday, and though they were only two days away from the next paycheck, they didn't have anything until then. They had both learned how quickly money could dry up in 12 days over the course of the past year.

He pretended that he hadn't opened up their fridge this morning to find only ketchup and leftovers from his mom's restaurant, which she had certainly eaten already. "No, no, I'm good. I ate at tutoring. One of the teacher's ordered pizza, so I'm really full."

That was a lie. James had used up the last of their bread to make a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and had eaten only half of it at school. He would eat the other half later. He'd also managed to bum a bag of chips off of one of his friends who didn't want it. He was set.

The second thing James knew was that there was one frozen meal left in their freezer. Since his mom was closing tonight, she'd get to eat at work, but then she'd rest in her car before going to the store and she'd come home starving. She probably planned to heat it up if he said yes, but it didn't make sense for him to eat it when he knew she was going to want it later. He was pretty sure there was a theater club meeting tomorrow, where he could pretend to be interested in trying out for the play to get some pizza for lunch.

"Okay, honey." Mary stood from the table and opened up a drawer, shoving in the envelope of papers that James realized she was trying to keep him from looking at. She kissed the top of his head as she passed him to go to her bedroom. A few moments later, she emerged with her purse and walked towards the door. "I don't know if I'm going to come home tonight"—she wouldn't—"so make sure you lock the door behind me"—he always did—"I love you."

"Love you too, mom," James said as his mother slipped out the door. He got up and clicked the lock. He also pushed the deadbolt to the secured position. He pressed his ear to the thin door and listened for the sound of his mom's footsteps reaching the bottom of the stairs. Once he was content that she wasn't going to quickly turn out around for something she forgot, he went over to the drawer she had shoved her secret papers into. He pulled out the envelope and brought it over to the dining table.

As he unfolded the papers, James felt like his chest had imploded. The bolded and underlined words "**Eviction Notice**" were all he needed to see. He forced himself to skim the short, legal letter. Eventually his eyes landed on the phrase "vacate the apartment in five (5) days". He slammed the papers down.

He generally tried not to think about his father, but for a moment he allowed himself to imagine where his father was living wherever he had run off to. It was sure as hell nicer than their run-down apartment, in the middle of the part of town James had never been to a year ago, where the windows had to be barred. The apartment they were getting evicted from.

In an apparent attempt by the universe to make him feel worse, James's stomach grumbled and cramped. He groaned and set his forehead down on the table. He weighed if he should eat his sandwich now or wait until morning and let it be breakfast. If he ate it now, he ran the risk of not having anything tomorrow.

Tomorrow it was then.

He didn't bother to put the eviction notice back. Mary must have been trying to figure out how to tell him; he would save her the trouble. He walked over to the sink, grabbed a glass from the drying rack, and filled it up. He chugged that then filled it up again. He brought it with him, grabbing his backpack as he headed over to the futon in the living room that he would pull out when it was time to go to sleep. For now, he just sat down and pulled out his math homework.

It wasn't due until Wednesday, but he figured tomorrow was as a good a time as any to start looking for a job. He was only fourteen, so it would be difficult to find somewhere that would hire him, but eviction notices didn't just disappear. Most of the other kids at school—a public school James had also never stepped foot in for the first thirteen years of his life—were also living with the constant threat of eviction and missed meals, so he hoped if he asked around someone might be able to give him an idea of places to check.

James rummaged around in his backpack but couldn't find a pencil. He suddenly remembered lending it to a kid in sixth period "to write his name real quick" and then never getting it back. He sighed and threw his notebook aside, standing to go to dig around in his mom's stuff for one.

He made it one and a half steps before he hit the floor. His vision blacked out. He blinked quickly, trying to get the blurry light pushing through to form back into an actual image. His heart pounded as he worked his way up to his hands and knees. Eventually, the image of the tan carpet below started to become clearer. James squished his eyes shut and opened them one more time for good measure. He pushed himself back onto his butt and leaned against the futon.

He focused on his breathing, trying to breath in for 4 seconds, hold it for 7, and breath out for 8. The nurse at the school had taught him how to do that when this happened at school once. It had been happening a lot, but normally he didn't drop like this; he just had to grab the wall for a few moments. He'd been in history and stood to grab worksheets for his row, only to black out and suddenly be heaved to his feet by the loudmouth kid who sat behind him. He'd walked James to the nurse, who told him he was probably "just hypoglycemic", which she explained meant his blood sugar was low. "Did you miss breakfast today?" she had asked sweetly. James knew she phrased it that way for a reason. He had nodded, and she'd pulled a nutrition bar out of a cabinet. "Eat."

James had looked hypoglycemia up, and apparently this was normal for someone who was hungry—but it happened way more than he thought it was supposed to and even when he wasn't that hungry. It happened on the second Thursday of the month, when his mom would get too excited going grocery shopping and blow it too quickly because she was still learning how much things actually cost, when he'd eaten three square meals in the past 24 hours.

James wanted to scream; he wanted to punch things; he wanted to track his dad down and beat the living hell out of him. But he didn't do any of those things. Instead, he heaved himself up off the floor, took a few more measured breaths to try to get his heart to slow down, and started figuring out a list of places a fourteen-year-old could get hired.


End file.
